WilliamsF1s' strong showing in Imola qualifying

Prior to qualifying the warm-up session would see David Coulthard leading the way ahead of Michael Schumacher, Juan Pablo Montoya and team-mate Ralf Schumacher, which continued to support the view that both WilliamsF1 drivers were going to perform well in qualifying.

The final qualifying would see the drivers run in reverse order of Friday’s provisional grid. The first driver to take to the track was Minardi's Justin setting a time of 1m:25. 826. Next was to be his team-mate Jos Verstappen but the Dutchman was to hit the wall. He was able to get out of the car uninjured. His accident would bring out a red flag stopping the
session.

For Toyota's Cristiano da Matta this stoppage would force him to return to his garage while Verstappen’s Minardi was cleared off the circuit. As a result Verstappen will now start from the back of the grid.

The session would resume and da Matta would set the fastest time at this point. Next came Ralph Firman, who after having a moment with his Jordan in the dirt, would finish in third. Renault's Jarno Trulli would continue to have a difficult weekend setting on the second fastest time behind da Matta. Trulli was forced to swap to his spare car after problems with his race car. Jaguar's Antonio Pizzonia was next, and after a trouble free run he would go three tenths of a second behind da Matta. For Sauber's Nick Heidfeld he would jump to the top of the times taking provisional pole by .138 sec.

For Renault's Fernando Alonso he would be up on Heidfeld's first sector time and at the end of his lap would be over half a second faster than the Sauber, taking provisional pole.

Toyota's Oliver Panis would complete his lap and finish in second. For Jordan's Giancarlo Fisichella he would go seventh fastest with Sauber's Heinz Harald Frentzen moving into fifth place. Frentzen would lose time in the first sector. McLaren's David Coulthard would go fourth after a mistake in sector three, while his team-mate Raikkonen would start his lap. For Kimi starts his run and he would seta time of 1m:23.148 minutes and takes the provisional pole.

Next came BAR's Jacques Villeneuve and he would finish second just behind the Finn, only 0.012 seconds separating the two fastest drivers. Team-mate Button would go fourth with a time of 1m:23.381, showing that the BAR team is making progress as the season progresses. The final group of Mark Webber, Juan Montoya, Ralf Schumacher, Rubens Barrichello and Michael Schumacher were yet to run.

Next would be Jaguar's Mark Webber who was aiming to continue his strong showing this weekend and he would go to the top of the times with a lap of 1m:23.015 to lead Raikkonen who was now in second. Juan Pablo would be next and he would set the fastest first sector time and set a lap time of 1m:22.789 which would see Webber's time in pole very short. Montoya was a little slower in sector two but he would set the fastest third sector.

For Ralf he would go fastest in the second sector and as he crossed the line he would seta time of 1m:22.341 to be four tenths ahead of his team-mate. But would he be able to maintain his pole position with the two Ferrari's yet to run.

The first Ferrari would be Rubens Barrichello followed by Michael Schumacher. For Rubens he would be slower than Ralf but he would go second splitting the two WilliamsF1 cars. But now it was Michael Schumacher's turn and he would be fastest in the first sector, one tenth down in sector two, and he would cross the line taking pole with a time of 1m:22.327. His time was only just over one tenth faster than Ralf.